Schools debate merits of ‘video resumes’

As a host of new online services cater to the YouTube generation, college and career counselors are debating the merits of the latest trend in job seeking: the video resume.

Fallon Rechnitz–who set her video-capable digital camera on a stack of books, then hit the record button and spoke for about 30 seconds, instantly producing a video resume she plans to send to potential employers–is at the forefront in the hunt for employment. Video-resume services are only starting to emerge on the internet, and the 22-year-old Arizona State senior believes the visuals can give her a leg up after graduating this month.

“I feel like my personality is what really seals the deal, and if they can see my personality I’d get a better chance of getting the job,” said Rechnitz, who is applying for news positions with television stations in Arizona.

The job search has come a long way since the days of printing resumes on high-quality, linen paper and stuffing them in matching envelopes. To stand out now, some job seekers are turning to online services such as WorkBlast.com and ResumeBook.tv, or posting their clips on a video-sharing site like Google Inc.’s YouTube. No longer limited to mailing video on tape or a CD, they are eMailing links to employers directly or adding them to traditional electronic resumes.

Some video resumes, like Rechnitz’s, show a candidate speaking directly to a camera, while others are mock interviews. Some blend in visuals of related work or extracurricular activities, such as playing the piano.

Many employers welcome the chance to see a candidate before committing to an interview. Laurine Sargent said she wished she had video clips to accompany the roughly 60 applications she received for a recent opening at her Phoenix-based real-estate firm.

“After a while, [the resumes] would become hypnotic,” she said. “Everybody today knows to say the right things they know employers are looking for.”

She said she invited a dozen candidates for interviews and might have cut that in half had she seen their presentation skills ahead of time.

Others, however, remain skeptical, worried about the time it would take to view all the video and the potential for discrimination based on race, age, and other factors that wouldn’t be apparent strictly from a traditional resume.

“Employers have told me for years that they will throw a resume in the trash if it has a picture attached or included,” said Shirley Rasberry, the career-services director at Texas Christian University’s business school. “They want to be sure there is no chance of being accused of any kind of discrimination. So a video resume would have the same effect.”

Job seekers also open themselves to looking stupid, and not just by choosing weird or inappropriate eMail addresses.

“It’s almost like handing a job candidate a loaded gun,” said Scott Erker, a senior vice president at the human-resources consulting firm Development Dimensions International. “You can be quite casual, when in fact you want to make sure you’re tops in professionalism.”

Patricia O’Keefe, assistant career director at the University of Denver, said neither employers nor students have brought up video resumes, and the university hasn’t been pushing them. She favors waiting until employers resolve any issues related to discrimination.

Tyler Redford, chief executive of ResumeBook, acknowledged that employers and career centers have been skeptical. Fewer than a third of ResumeBook’s users have posted a video resume, even though it is a core feature.

But Redford and other supporters believe discrimination could occur at the interview stage even without video resumes, so that alone should not deter job seekers.

As for concerns about the time it takes to view all the video, “it’s a matter of where you work it into the process,” Redford said. Employers could save time overall, he said, by reviewing video before asking the finalists to travel for interviews.

Even if an employer never sees it, producing a video resume could help a job candidate prepare for the interview and boost self-confidence, said Tim Apolito, a University of Dayton instructor who has been helping criminal-justice students prepare video resumes long before YouTube and the online services came around.

Nick Murphy, operations manager with WorkBlast LLC, said video resumes aren’t meant to replace other job-search tools, nor are they limited to professions in which employers deal directly with the public.

“It’s an opportunity to learn a great deal about people,” he said. A video resume can provide hints about a candidate’s personality, he added, and it can serve as another tool for evaluating a candidate’s potential value to the hiring organization.